


A List To Keep You Safe

by Elvamire (orphan_account)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Cecil is Mostly Human, Cecil takes horrific things for granted, Creepy, Gen, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and also omnipresent, at least i hope it's creepy, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Elvamire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Night Vale is dangerous in the dark, no matter how many lists you've memorized on recommendation of the Sheriff's Secret Police.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A List To Keep You Safe

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by the list of words read out near the beginning of Episode 16, The Phone Call. Some words were left out or ignored so as not to ruin the tone of the tale.

That day’s experiments at the house that didn’t exist hadn’t meant to take as long as it had, but Carlos was so frequently surprised by everything in Night Vale that, well, he wasn’t surprised anymore. Moreover, he liked his job anyway- he liked trying to figure out the town’s many mystifying secrets.

The idea of having to walk home alone in the dark didn’t really appeal to him as much, but he hadn’t much of a choice. Besides, he’d walked home at night before, even in Night Vale, and never had anything bad happen to him. He was long past the age of being frightened of what lurked in the dark.

                The streets, he thought as he walked through them, really were dark though. And it was cold in the desert at night, cold enough that Carlos wished he’d worn more than just his lab coat over his flannel or. Or he wished that he had staying the night at Cecil’s to look forward to, curled around his boyfriend in the bed he was slowly starting to think of as ‘theirs.’

Carlos’ thoughts as well as his steps stopped dead when he heard a low, organic sound echo through the dimly lit streets. He reflexively looked around him, but he couldn’t see anyone- just the pale moon in the sky and the gust of wind that stirred his dark hair.

The sound came again, and Carlos didn’t think it sounded so far away anymore; the next street over, maybe. It was the sound of someone groaning and sobbing at the same time, a soft and helpless fear-moan. The voice sounded young, feminine, vulnerable.

Carlos frowned. If there was a girl- if there was _anyone_ \- in trouble nearby… he didn’t think he could go home with a clear conscience. He bit his lip, and turned around, heading in the direction the noise had come from rather than back towards his home. He ducked through an alley into the next street along, past a hardware shop that had long since closed for the night. He emerged into the street that he knew the noise had come from.

                There was absolutely nothing there.

The sound came again, from behind him this time. Carlos whirled around, and again saw nothing but streets empty with night and cast in shadows. In between the moans, Night Vale was utterly and completely quiet. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he turned around to walk back the way he had come. Only a few moments later, he had to stop- he could hear a second pair of footsteps, moving in time with his own. Yet, when he glanced over his shoulder, there was still nobody around.

Carlos shivered.

He made himself keep walking, his jaw set and determined even as the set of doppelganger footsteps started up again behind him. _Harmless Night Vale weirdness. Ignore it,_ he told himself. Still, he couldn’t keep from quickening his pace and starting to sweat slightly, nervously glancing around. Whoever was following matched his pace even when he was nearly jogging, feeling uncomfortably like he was being chased.

                He turned around, speed walking back through the alley and into the street where he’d heard the crying, determined to catch whoever was fucking with him.

There, at the end of the street, there was a figure curled up on themselves. They were definitely making the noises, and another terrified moan rang out even as Carlos watched. From this distance, he couldn’t tell if they were a girl or a boy, but they had long hair the colour of marmalade.

The scientist took a few hesitant steps forward, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as they watched the figure crying in the street. It was still very dark out, but a shaft of moonlight had fallen in the perfect place to illuminate them. Something, the tiny and exhausted voice of self-preservation in the back of his mind, kept telling him to avert his eyes. It told him that he shouldn’t look at the thing- the _thing_ , not the person. He could smell, very strongly, pepper, but that wasn’t half as odd as some of the things he’d seen earlier during his normal work day.

Carlos swallowed, and it felt like his heart was in his throat. He felt like he should call out to the small, sobbing shape, but he couldn’t force words out past the misplaced organ.

                Suddenly, the figure fell forwards onto its knees and went completely still. Its yellow hair fell forwards over its thin shoulders, and Carlos saw now that it was a young girl. Or he assumed it was. In either case, she was wearing a purple halter top as well as tight jeans. Her feet were bare, but in his mind’s eye he felt like there had been black stilettos on them.

The girl began to get up, her movements slow and shaky. Her knees were awkward and crooked, her feet turned inwards at an uncomfortable able. She stood on her toes, and her skin was pallid and pasty. The girl swayed dizzily on the spot, and Carlos decided he had made the right decision- she was very drunk, or hurt, and needed help.

He started confidently forwards, ignoring the unease that coiled tight in the pit of his stomach and the sweat beading at the back of his neck. Then yet again, he stopped dead, this time because the girl had turned around.

Her head had turned, anyway, a sharp and fast movement that he honestly thought should have snapped her neck. She was smiling far too widely to be natural (it should have split the skin of her face) and with too many shark-like teeth. Her eyes were all black, pupil, iris and sclera, obsidian laser lights in the gloom. She stayed very still. She just smiled at him, with her mouth too wide and her joints all crooked and wired up wrong. She looked like someone who had just jumped off a building and hit the ground in the worst way possible. Her chest did not rise, or fall.

                Carlos made a choked, terrified sound in the back of his throat. He couldn’t think. All he could do was stare deeply into the girl’s eyes while his mind screamed _wrong wrong wrong_.

She made a guttural sound in the back of her throat that send chills deep into the marrow of his bones, and that was what finally stirred him to run, stumbling backwards through the street and unable to tear his eyes away from her.

She chased him.

The unnatural girl sped quickly forwards, a blur of movement against the backdrop of the street. He didn’t see where she had gone until she had him by the throat and was lifting him off his feet with only one hand, laughing and showing every one of her teeth. He noticed, wildly, that her saliva was streaky grey like diluted ink. Her teeth were filthy with it.

She made another noise. It wasn’t a weak and frightened sound this time, but a joyous and laughing snarl that sounded almost like a word.

“ _Hungry_.”

Carlos wanted to scream, but her fingernails were too sharp to be fingernails and they were digging into his throat. He could feel hot blood running down his neck.

                There was another sound from the end of the street, a gasp that turned into a shrill scream. The girl’s head turned in another neck-breaking movements, her eyes wild and wide. She hadn’t blinked yet, and nor had her smile slipped. She glanced back to Carlos and lifted him higher into the air before physically throwing him away and back to the ground like a child discarding a toy. He hit the sidewalk hard, cutting the palms of his hands on the asphalt and hearing a sickening sound from his kneecap, which exploded in aching pain.

He looked over his shoulder at whoever had probably saved his life by distracting the girl- the _thing_ \- and saw a flash of leggings, brown hair up in a bun and a wool sweater. Then the blur that was the girl-shaped thing was upon the newcomer, tackling her to the ground and pressing down upon her.

Carlos dragged himself to the side of the street, pressing himself into an alcove and pressing his eyes tight shut as he listened to the shrieks that came from where the girl had stood. Guilt twisted painfully in his guts, but he could not, would not help her. She screamed like nothing had ever heard, crying and yelling and her pleading coming out as wet gargles before they died away entirely. Somehow, the noise that was left was more sickening.

_Crunch._

_Munch._

_Snap._

_Drip._

His heart still seemed to be caught in his throat as it beat harder than he could ever remember. He somehow imagined that he could hear the girl’s heart too, fading as her sounds did.

_Heartbeat._

_Heartbeat._

_Heart beat._

_Heart beat._

_Heart._

_Beat._

_Beat._

_Beat…_

He stayed there for what felt like a very long time. The icy fear had seeped inside of him and turned him into a sculpture, too terrified of the sounds he could hear and the idea that the thing he’d heard crying might still be there to move away from the alcove.

His limbs unstuck one by one and he slowly stood up, limping on his bad leg as he made his way out of his hiding place.

                The girl who had stumbled into the street at the wrong moment was still lying there, but the thing that had drawn Carlos in was gone. The girl was very nearly gone, too- the thing had torn her open, a neat vivisection from her throat to her pubis. Nothing else was neat. Her organs were torn out and half-eaten, bones cracked and gnawed. Yet somehow her eyes were still open, frighteningly blue and tearful as she trembled and stared up at Carlos. Her hand reached up, shaking, and he held it for her. Her blood smeared across his olive fingers. Then her eyes closed, and she was still.

                Carlos dropped her hand. The police. He should call the police. Except no, this was Night Vale, chances were they knew already. Chances were they had seen the whole thing and not cared to stop it. Yet his hand, shaking, slid into his pocket anyway and pulled out his phone. It only rang twice before it was answered.

“ _Carlos?_ ” Cecil may not have had caller ID, but he had a cell phone and Carlos knew its number.

“I’m calling for person reasons.” Carlos breathed into the receiver. His voice was shaking as much as his hands, but hearing his boyfriend say his name had calmed him ever so slightly. It was the voice of this awful, apparently murderous town, but it was still Cecil’s voice. “I just saw a girl killed.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“ _What?_ ”

“I heard someone crying.” Carlos wiped his face with his hand and whimpered when he realised he’d smeared the dead girl’s blood across it. “I followed it and there was just this- _thing_ \- and it _killed her_ , Cecil.”

“ _Carlos…_ ” Carlos knew that Cecil would know what had happened, somehow. He knew everything that happened in Night Vale. The scientist was just grateful that he didn’t have to relive it.

“Can I stay at your house tonight?” He asked before Cecil could say anything else. “I just- it’s closer than my lab, and I… don’t want to be alone…”

“ _Beautiful Carlos, you can always stay with me. I’m coming to get you._ ”

“You don’t have to, Cecil.”

“ _I want to._ ” The line clicked, and went dead. Carlos sat down heavily on the road, in the blood pooling around the mangled corpse, and waited for Cecil to come and lift him out of the viscera and into his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this a drabble, and very slow and unnervingly creepy until it finally builds to a glorious bloody crescendo, but it... sort of got away from me, yeah. I don't have a beta and even though I try and catch everything there's a chance of errors or dumb things that I would appreciate being pointed out to be fixed.


End file.
